


Sword & Shield

by Sandyclaws68



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Awkwardness, Developing Relationship, Dorks in Love, F/M, Female Pidge, First Kiss, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 18:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8338900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandyclaws68/pseuds/Sandyclaws68
Summary: Cooperating as the arms of Voltron requires a stronger bond than they currently share.





	

The tension in the medical bay was particularly high that afternoon. It wasn't because of any great number of serious injuries caused in an epic fight. It hadn't even been any sort of major battle, just a fairly routine skirmish against a Galra merchant fleet that had stumbled across their presence in the sector. But in one of those strange twists of ordinary circumstances Hunk had been injured, dislocating his right elbow and breaking three fingers on his left hand. It wasn't all that serious; even Coran had said it would probably only require about four hours in a pod to heal.

No, the tension in the room was high for another reason altogether.

“You realize this is your fault, right?” Keith suddenly asked, his icy voice breaking the uncomfortable silence. “That delay in dropping the shield interfered with my sword stroke. If I had been able to cut down when I needed to that ship never would have collided with Hunk.”

Pidge, who had not spoken a word since their return to the Castle, looked stricken. Her eyes widened and started to glimmer with unshed tears before she dropped her helmet and fled the room.

A ringing silence followed the soft _whoosh_ of the door closing behind her. It was broken when Allura stepped forward, boots loud on the metal floor, and picked up the discarded green helmet. Then she turned to Keith with a disappointed expression.

He sighed. “I know, I know.”

Shiro moved closer and laid on hand on the Red Paladin's shoulder. “Go get out of your armor and clean up,” he said. “Give it some time to let emotions settle before you try to talk to her.” His voice took on its command tone. “And you _will_ talk to her.”

Keith looked like he wanted to argue for half a second before he nodded and left the room. There was a mass exhale as soon as he was gone.

“Holy crow,” Lance breathed out. “That's the angriest I've ever seen Keith, and it wasn't directed at me! But why Pidge?”

Allura frowned and exchanged a glance with her advisor. “I don't think it's anger as much as frustration,” Coran said. “Keith just has trouble separating the two.”

“Keith and Pidge have to cooperate more than any other pair of you when Voltron is formed,” Allura continued. “And they have to be able to do it with no input from their commander or the Black Lion. I have no doubt they both intellectually understand that; it's getting them to embrace the idea with their instincts and emotions that's the problem. The fact that their bond is the weakest between any two Paladins doesn't help.”

“Keith has always had issues with opening up to people,” Shiro said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And the need for secrecy at the Academy has made Pidge the same, to a degree.” He shrugged once. “I don't know how to break either of them out of it, let alone both.”

“Well, we can't force them into an intimacy they don't feel,” Coran pit in.

“Or can we?”

Everyone's gaze jumped to Lance, who had an almost predatory gleam in his eyes. He held up a hand to stop objections. “Hear me out. Keith loves the physical and hand-to-hand combat training that Pidge hates, and she loves all the techno mumbo-jumbo that he does his best to ignore.”

They all look confused for a few moments before Coran started laughing. “So we make each the other's mentor!” He slapped Lance on the back, causing the younger man to grunt in pain. “That may just be the best idea you've ever had, my boy!”

****~**~**~**~**~****

The next morning Pidge arrived late for a scheduled training session, bustling onto the training deck and babbling apologies, only to come to an abrupt halt when she saw that only Keith was there. “Wha -?”

He turned at the sound of her voice, deactivating his sword and waiting till the Bayard disappeared into its holster. “You're late.”

Pidge flushed and fidgeted for a moment before walking across the deck, trying to project confidence. “Yeah, I know. I've been working on a way to jam the Galra's long-range sensors and lost track of time.” When Keith acknowledged the explanation (and the implied apology it contained) with a nod she continued. “Where's everyone else?”

“Not coming,” was the terse reply. “Apparently Allura has decided to put me in charge of some extra hand-to-hand combat training for you.”

Her jaw dropped for a moment, but Pidge quickly gathered herself and glared at Keith, unmistakable suspicion in her eyes. “Why?”

“How the hell should I know?” Keith shot back, starting to look distinctly put-out. “Shiro's a much better teacher than I am.”

“He certainly is.”

“You didn't have to agree so readily.”

Pidge laughed. “Yeah, well, you know me. Always agreeable and accommodating.”

Keith shot her a look that made her laugh even harder before he gave in to hilarity himself. One minute of laughter stretched into two, then three. When they were able to finally calm down Keith had to wipe tears from his eyes while Pidge struggled to catch her breath.

“It. . . It really wasn't. . . that funny,” Pidge gasped out, shoulders still heaving. She sucked in a breath and held it briefly, feeling a measure of peace return. When she exhaled everything was normal again, except for one thing.  “You should really laugh and smile more, Keith,” she commented. “It's a good look for you.”

His face flamed as he quickly turned away. “Smiling isn't much use in a battle, though,” he replied, sounding like his usual, serious self. “And you have three seconds of warning.”

“Keith. . .”

“Three."

“Wait!”

“Two."

“Shit!”

“One.”

A soft buzz was the final warning and then the Red Paladin's sword was whistling through the air, headed right for her head. Pidge managed to leap backward in time, but it was still close enough to feel the wind as it passed her face. She dropped her right hand to her hip and felt the reassuring weight of the Green Bayard as it appeared in her hand. It activated a split second later, casting a green glow over her face.

****~**~**~**~**~****

Nearly two hours later the pair of them were laid out on the training deck floor, breathless, sweaty, and exhausted.

“I hate you,” Pidge whispered. “I'd show you just how much but I don't think I can lift my arms.”

“Urrrrrrrgggghhhhh.”

****~**~**~**~**~****

Two days later Coran pulled Keith off of the training deck with a scowl. “I know you don't like getting involved in these sorts of things, but you need to gain a better understanding of the technology of your Lion.” He pushed the younger man ahead of him down a corridor. “Get to your hangar and lend a hand with a new upgrade.”

As tempted as he was to ignore the order Keith knew better than to get on Coran's bad side, so after taking a quick shower and changing clothes he trudged toward the hangar, taking the long way through the Castle corridors in an effort to put off the torture for as long as possible. Once there he made note of the strange tools on the work bench and the sounds of electrical snapping from high above. “Okay Hunk, I'm here. I've reported in, so can you just accept that and ignore me when I skip out?”

A laugh that was distinctly not Hunk's echoed through the cavernous room. “Nice try, Mullet.” Pidge's head appeared from over the top of the Red Lion's head. “Now get your ass up here.”

Keith pointedly looked from the floor to the top of his Lion's head, regretting that he wasn't wearing his armor so he could just use the jet pack to fly up. “How, exactly?”

The eyeroll was almost audible from the floor. “Geez, you really don't know anything about this amazing machine, do you?” Pidge asked, shifting so they could see each other better. She wasn't wearing her armor either. “Inside the space behind the cockpit you'll find an access panel labeled 6D. Open it and climb out through the air duct to the top of her head. Easy.”

With a grunt Keith did as instructed, vaguely surprised when his head popped out of the duct barely a foot away from where Pidge knelt, elbows deep in a mess of tangled wires. He lifted himself up and sat on the edge, legs still inside. “What are you working on?”

“We,” Pidge replied, pulling one arm free and stretching toward a small sack of equipment. “What are _we_ working on,” she repeated, growling in frustration when she couldn't reach her tools. Keith decided not to risk the wrath of a grumpy Pidge and pushed it closer to her, smiling at the small sound of satisfaction she made when she got her hands on a pair of pliers. She fitted the tool into an awkward position, just managing to use it to get a bolt free. “Hand me that blue connector, would you?”

Keith looked in the bag and pulled out the requested item, passing it to Pidge without a word. He sat quietly as she worked to install the new connector, grinning at her huffy exhalations and the occasional muffled curse word. Finally she sat back and regarded him. “Go inside and activate the cloak; I want to see if this modification fixed that short.”

Following orders he dropped back inside and into the cockpit, rubbing a hand across the control console and getting a half-snort, half-purr in return. The heads-up display for all of Pidge's additions came to life and he swiped the cloaking butting to the “On” position. As soon as he did the display switched to the outside view through the Lion's eyes and he watched as her paws vanished. “I think it worked, “ he shouted to Pidge.

“Yeah, looks like -” Her voice was cut off by loud crackling, then a pop that couldn't be anything but electrical. “OUCH!” Pidge exclaimed barely a second before the entire cockpit went dark.

“Are you okay?” Keith called out, banging his knee as he tried to maneuver back to the access panel in the dark. “Pidge?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just. . .”

He heard her sigh as he climbed back into the light of the hangar. He could clearly see a tiny scorch mark on the new connector that had just been installed. “Maybe it didn't work after all?” he suggested.

“No, it worked,” Pidge said. “It fixed the short. This -” She gestured to the scorching. “ - is from a new one.” She scowled in frustration. “If I could just figure out what the problem is. . .” She all but dove head first into her work, only stopping when Keith laid a hand on her shoulder.

“I, uh, think I might know what's going on,” Keith put in, feeling the tingle at the back of his mind that meant Red was talking to him. “She. . . Well, she doesn't like the cloak.”

Pidge gave him the sort of look teachers reserve for particularly inept students. “She doesn't like the cloak.” Her deadpan voice was a little scary.

Keith had to fight against the flush he could feel climbing his face. “Yeah, see. . . You know that she's the fastest of the Lions, right?” When Pidge nodded he went on. “And, well, she thinks that her speed is more than enough and hiding from the enemy is dishonorable.”

The inept-student-look dissolved into a grin. “You two really are a matched set, aren't you?” Pidge asked with a chuckle. “But. . . If I may?” She held out a hand toward Keith.

“What?”

Pidge rolled her eyes. “I want to talk to Red directly and the fastest way to do that is through your bond with her so take my hand, dammit!”

Keith did, and then went still when he felt another presence in his mind. It was female, but so completely different from Red that he nearly dropped Pidge's hand before realizing that what he was feeling _was_ Pidge. They had a bond as Paladins, he knew that, but had never felt it so strongly. It was a little strange; Shiro always felt like calm water: cool and placid. Lance was sort of the mental equivalent of a hand buzzer: a hard jolt and then an almost constant vibration. And Hunk. . . Hunk was like his element, earth: a solid, dependable presence.

Pidge was. . .

Different. It was the exhilaration of racing down a steep hill on your bike, the rush of wind against your face and in your hair. But there was also an underlying feeling like the hush of snow in the forest; a softness that barely covered the tiniest, crystalline noises of flakes falling. And over all of that was the unmistakable scent of rain. It all added up to something that he would never be able to think of as anything but Pidge.

Then the two of them connected through his mind, and Keith felt a surge of happiness coming from the pair. It wasn't something he had ever really thought about, but now it was clear that Red needed some measure of female companionship; thousands of years with male paladins obviously took it's toll. And while there was a bit of the standoffish-ness that he always associated with his Lion it was clear that Pidge already had Red's respect.

Pidge's eyes closed as he watched, and the happy feeling changed into something more serious, almost clinical. Whatever they were discussing was important, but that didn't keep Pidge's lips from twitching upward in the smallest of smiles. Then she laughed outright, causing Keith to start. Then she dropped his hand and stepped away.

“We're good,” Pidge said with a grin. “She understands now and promised to stop interfering with the cloak.”

“What did you say to her?”

Pidge shrugged. “I just explained that the cloak is not meant as a slight on her abilities, which are truly astounding -” Keith snorted. “ - but is just another layer of protection for all of us.”

“I can't believe she accepted such blatant flattery,” Keith replied, shaking his head. “If I ever said something like that she'd give me the cold shoulder for weeks.”

“Yeah, well, being another woman helps. Just a bit.”

“I could tell.” Pidge glanced his way, face puzzled, and Keith felt the beginnings of a blush. “I felt the two of you. Separately, and then when you connected.” He laughed a little. “You're presence in the Paladin bond has always been kind of muted, at least for me, so when you touched my mind it was. . .”

“Weird?”

“No! Not at all. It felt. . . Nice. Good.”

And as soon as those words left his mouth Keith realized that he might just be in a bit of trouble.

****~**~**~**~**~****

“Why are you still insisting on me training her?”

“Because she needs the training and you need to learn to open up to people more,” Shiro replied. “So just deal with it.”

****~**~**~**~**~****

“You know I can do all these improvements and upgrades without an assistant, right?”

“Of course,” Coran said. “But Keith needs to learn more about his Lion than just how to fly her and who better to teach him than you?”

****~**~**~**~**~****

“That was a lot better, Pidge. You held your own for almost ten minutes.”

Pidge groaned before rolling over and pulling her legs under her, resting on her hands and knees. “Ten minutes? Is that all?”

“You'd last a lot longer in a spar, and not be so worn out, if you would play to your strengths,” Keith replied, stowing his bayard and settling on the floor beside Pidge.

“What do you mean?”

Keith sat with his knees drawn up, elbows resting on them and hands hanging loose between. “You're trying to match me in force,” he said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “And there are two things wrong with that. One, I may not be that much bigger but I _am_ bigger than you, and stronger. Two, the larger weapon means greater leverage in a strike, so I have the advantage there as well.”

Pidge wanted to argue but couldn't deny the facts that were being laid out. “Okay, those are both fair points,” she commented, shifting until she could sit. “But I'm not seeing the bigger picture.”

“Well, you're fast, right? And agile. Your Bayard is more of a defensive weapon, and even it's one offensive function is more about slowing an opponent down than stopping him. You need to develop a fighting style that takes advantage of all of those qualities, not try and emulate someone else's.” He stopped speaking and shoved a hand through his disheveled hair. “I'm sorry, I don't mean to lecture. But these are things you need to think about. I mean, it's pretty obvious you're meant to be a defensive fighter. You're even Voltron's shield, for pity's sake!” he concluded with a laugh.

Pidge had been nodding along as he spoke but his last comment made her jaw drop. “You. . . I mean. . .” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Repeat that last part,” she ordered.

Keith looked surprised at her vehemence. “You're the shield,” he repeated. “Your Lion is Voltron's left arm and you hold the shield.” His brow furrowed and his forehead creased. “What's wrong?”

She started to laugh. “Nothing's wrong. I just think I might have figured out why everyone is so insistent on us working with each other.” And she explained to him all the things that had just clicked in her mind, surprised to see him blushing when she finished.

“I don't really think it was your fault,” Keith all but whispered, keeping his gaze averted.

Pidge let her gaze rest on Keith until he turned towards her and their eyes met. “It was my fault though, in a way. You were right when you said I hesitated in dropping the shield. I didn't. . .” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Sometimes I don't trust you to end things with a sword strike. I worry that if I drop the shield even one second too soon an attack will get through.”

“Well, in the interests of full disclosure I sometimes have a hard time trusting you also,” Keith softly replied. “It's, umm, well, it goes back to when you said you wanted to leave the team. I don't always react well to. . .” His voice trailed off and he shrugged. “Shiro says I have abandonment issues, and when you seemed so ready to turn your back on all of us I kind of lost a bit of faith.” He laughed a little wryly. “But the big question is how do we fix this?”

“Not easily.” Pidge shifted closer and leaned against Keith's side. “We need to strengthen our bond, and luckily I have a couple of ideas on how to do that.” She looked at him with a smile. “If you're up for it, that is?”

Keith snorted a laugh and then nodded, watching as Pidge rose to her feet and extended a hand, pulling him up. They were halfway to the door of the training deck before he spoke. “Where are we going?””

“To get a set of those Altean handcuffs Coran once used so effectively on all of us.”

****~**~**~**~**~****

“Wait, don't - OW! Do you have to tug so hard?”

“If you kept up this wouldn't be an issue. Now let's try that side shift again, and -”

“ _Quiznack!_ Will you watch where you're swinging that sword?!”

Keith exhaled hard enough to flutter the hair around his face before deactivating his Bayard. “This was your idea, remember,” he said with a glare at the cuffs that connected his left wrist to Pidge's right one.

The shield she held in her left hand disappeared in a flash of light and then the cuffs did as well. Pidge dropped to the floor, breathing hard and scrubbing her face with one hand. “Why the hell is this so hard?” she asked. “We don't seem to have this much trouble when we're in Voltron.”

Keith rubbed his wrist where the cuff had left a ring of red, irritated skin. “That's because even when we're in Voltron we are, to a degree, acting independently. You have control of your Lion and I have control of mine. We have to cooperate, yes, but we still have the option of thinking for ourselves and each making our own decisions. This training exercise is basically the exact opposite of that.”

“Then why are we doing it?”

“Don't make me repeat myself,” he replied, crossing the room to the duffle bag they had brought with them that morning. It contained additional weapons, including the long-bladed knife that Keith had owned back on Earth, a spare set of handcuffs, two of the brainwave headsets that helped facilitate their bonding, and one of Pidge's data screens in case they wanted to make any adjustments to the battle simulation programming. At the very bottom of the jumble he found what he was looking for and quickly drew the longest sections of his hair back into a short ponytail that he tied at the base of his skull.  When he turned back around Pidge was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling with a thoughtful expression. He crossed back and sat at her side, content to wait as she puzzled something out.

“It's our hands,” she finally whispered. She had been silent for so long that Keith started at the sound of her voice. She sat up and turned to face him, taking his left hand. “Our dominant hands are the opposite of what we are as part of Voltron.”

“Explain.”

“I'm right handed, but have to function as Voltron's left hand,” Pidge began, voice growing a little louder as she warmed to the topic. “You're left handed - “

“Ambidextrous.”

Pidge nodded. “Yes, yes, I know that, but your dominant hand is your left. And. . .” her words trailed off as she waited for him to catch up.

“And I'm the right arm of Voltron,” he concluded. Then he shook his head. “I don't see how that can really be an issue; like I already said we each can act independently inside our lions. Including using whatever hand we're most comfortable with.”

“True, but this – flip-flopping, for lack of a better word – might be another factor in our bond not being as strong as it should be” Pidge got to her feet and started pacing. “On some unconscious level our brains are fighting against all of this, and what the heck did you do to your hair?”

“My hair?” Keith ran a hand over his head, brushing against the stubby ponytail. “Oh, yeah. Just trying to keep some of it from getting in the way.” He glanced up, surprised to see a flush staining Pidge's cheeks. “Does it look that ridiculous?”

Her cheeks reddened even more. “No, not ridiculous.” She coughed to clear a catch in her throat before whispering. “It looks good.”

Keith felt his face start to heat, but he resisted the urge to pull out the tie and release his hair. Instead he turned away and pretended to be engrossed in an imaginary spot on the leg of his armor.

Pidge cleared her throat. “So, like I was saying, some part of each of our brains resists the bond because the non-dominant half has to exert more control than it's used to.”

“So what are we supposed to do about this? We need to strengthen our bond if we're ever going to be able to really, truly fight as a unit And any success we all want to have as a team is kind of dependent on you and I working as a cohesive pair.”

“As much as I hate to go through it again we may need to force the issue,” Pidge replied as she went to the duffle bag and removed the brainwave headsets.

“Ugh,” Keith grunted. “Do we have to do this?”

“Have you got a better idea?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Then it's settled.” Pidge tossed one of the headsets to him and sat down so they could face each other, pushing the other head rig down over her hair, making sure that the section on her forehead was in direct contact with skin. She glanced at Keith. 'Come on, hurry up so we can get this over with.”

“Okay, okay,” he responded, feeling a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. It was funny seeing his own lack of enthusiasm reflected in Pidge's words and expression, although he doubted she had the same reasons for being reluctant. On the surface, yes: they were both intensely private people who found opening up to others to be difficult, but Keith knew his issue was bigger than that. The last thing he wanted was for Pidge to become aware of the alteration in his feelings toward her. But refusing to be a part of this exercise would, in truth, look that much worse. With luck he'd be able to hide most of it, or play it off as something else if it came to that.

He quickly donned the head gear, shoving hair off of his forehead. This wasn't like the previous brainwave training that all five of them had undergone; wanting to strengthen their bond was a much more nebulous goal than the formation of Voltron. “So, how do we do this?” Keith asked, looking up and meeting Pidge's eyes.

“I'm not sure,” she replied. “Let's try thinking of a common memory first. Like. . . Ummm. . .”

“How about our discovery of Blue?” Keith suggested with a small grin. “That's a pretty memorable moment in both our lives, I'd think.”

_When all of the carvings lit up the blue light cast an eerie glow throughout the cavern. It intensified when the ground beneath their feet erupted in the same light, but they barely had time to react to that before the earth fell away and they dropped, plunging down, riding an underground river until they slipped over a waterfall and came to an abrupt halt with a splash._

“ _They **are** everywhere.”_

Pidge couldn't stop the giggle that escaped. “Maybe that memory has a bit too much Lance in it,” she commented. The mental link shifted then, and in the back of her mind she heard an echo of Keith's voice: _You are the Worst. Pilot. Ever!_. And underlying everything was the fear that had been an indelible part of that first journey.

“You're probably right,” Keith spoke finally. “Plus I think that maybe having both of us focused on the same thing may have created a sort of feedback loop, especially of negative emotions.”

Pidge nodded. Sharing the memory had made some of the fear that much worse. “Maybe we should kind of take turns. I'll think of a moment that we shared, and then you think of a different one, and so on. But let's try and stick to positive things, okay?”

As soon as Keith agreed Pidge let her eyes drift closed, letting her mind drift until it connected with a memory that she knew they both shared.

_It was dark inside the Galra ship; the violet lights set in the wall at intervals doing very little to help the oppressive feeling. How Shiro managed to recognize anything was a miracle, but he did. The argument over prisoners was using up some of their dwindling time, though._

“ _Commander Holt is my father. He and my brother were the ones on the Kerberos Mission with you.”_

Keith's brow furrowed as the memory unspooled inside his head. It wasn't exactly the most positive thought, but considering Pidge's never-ending concern for her father and brother it wasn't surprising that it was the first thing her brain latched onto. Maybe he could do better.

“ _We're the only ones out here and she's no princess of ours!”_

_The food goo made a sickening, squelching sound as it smacked into Pidge, covering the left side of her face and dripping from her chin. There were flecks in Keith's hair as well, splashed there from that moment of contact. As one the two of them glared at Allura, then their cuffed together hands slid under the closest plate._

“ _Go loose, Pidge!”_

He felt laughter drifting his way from the other end of the link, and then other memories started flowing thick and fast.

“ _We had a bonding moment. I cradled you in my arms!”_

“ _I'm a girl. I mean, I can 'man up' because that's just a figure of speech.”_

“ _Uh, no, but we could record you making a siren noise and broadcast that to them.”_

_Pidge was going a little crazy in her admiration for the robot unit Beezer._

“ _Yeah!” Keith chuckled. “Hey Lance, I got your Lion back.”_

Suddenly the mental link broke as Pidge burst out laughing. “Sorry, sorry,” she breathed between fits of giggles. “I couldn't hold it in any longer!” She pressed a hand to her chest and tried to calm down. “Why is it that all of the most ridiculous things we can remember involve Lance?”

Keith grinned. “I have a few theories,” he said, making Pidge double over laughing again. He scratched his forehead underneath the headset, sobering as he did. “But this doesn't seem to be working either. I mean, I guess it is in the sense of reminding us of just how much we've shared, but beyond that. . .”

“Yeah, I know.” Pidge sighed, all traces of laughter gone. “I think we just have to make this as simple as possible. You think about me and I'll think about you. Nothing else.”

“Fair enough.”

Keith closed his eyes again and cleared everything out of his mind, imagining a blank, white wall. He could feel Pidge doing the same thing; it came across the link stronger than anything else thus far that day. Then a picture started to take shape on that wall.

Pidge's amber eyes dancing as she laughed at something. The way she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Fingers dancing across a computer keyboard at a speed he couldn't even follow. Her slightly crooked smile. The indignant huff she let out whenever Coran referenced her height. The disgusted twist of her face when Hunk served the space equivalent of cauliflower at dinner.

And just like that the feeling he had come to think of as “Pidge” blossomed in his mind. That snowfall-in-the-forest silence. The smell of rain. And the adrenaline rush of the bike and the hill, the wind roaring past his face. It all swirled together before settling down, taking up permanent residence in his head. It said _I'm here, and you're not getting rid of me anytime soon_.

Pidge felt it the moment Keith's mind connected to hers, but she forced herself not to think about it. It didn't really matter anyway, since if she couldn't forge a connection from her end it'd be useless. So she focused on that blank wall, and then slowly let mental images of Keith play across her psyche.

How in certain lights his eyes looked almost purple. The rare, but genuine, smile. The absolute trust he had in all of his team mates, even if he never voiced it out loud. The funny way his hair curled at his collar. That ridiculously adorable ponytail he was currently sporting. His dry sense of humor that always seemed to appear at just the right moment.

A warmth took hold in that part of her mind that contained the Paladin bond, growing stronger with each passing second. It was like standing close to a fire for just the tiniest bit too long; her skin tightened and tingled in response. But underneath the burning heat was a comfort that she didn't know how to describe. It was almost like the feeling she associated with the scent of her grandfather's pipe tobacco; a hug for the soul instead of the body. And it was distinctly, undeniably Keith, in a way that she couldn't ignore.

They both blinked their eyes open at the same time and regarded the other with unwavering gazes. Keith pulled off his headset and slid across the floor, moving in closer to Pidge. Then he leaned in and kissed her.

Or tried to. Their noses bumped painfully and their teeth clashed together hard enough to be audible. They both pulled back, hands pressed to their mouths, then simultaneously stood and bolted from the room through opposite doors.

****~**~**~**~**~****

“This training experiment is over,” Keith announced as soon as he found Shiro. “I am not doing this anymore.”

Shiro looked up from the book he had been reading, taking in Keith's swollen lips and flushed face. “Oh?” was all he said.

For a moment the Red Paladin looked like he was going to respond heatedly, but then he buried his flaming face in his hands. “Ah kmmph hessssh,” were the garbled words that came out of his mouth.

“What?”

“I kissed her!” he shouted, having pulled his hands away from his face just long enough to be heard and understood.

Shiro was dumbfounded, eyes wide and jaw slack. “Umm, good?”

Keith glared. “Not even close.”

****~**~**~**~**~****

“I'm done,” Pidge announced as she stormed into the control room to confront Coran. “This little exercise to push Keith and I closer is over.”

Coran didn't visibly react other than to glance at Pidge over his shoulder. “Has it worked at all?”

“I. . . You. . . Uh. . . That is _not_ the point!” The flush rising on her face could have rivaled a tomato.

“Well, judging by how riled up you are I'd have to guess that it has worked, and that is exactly the point,” Coran commented before turning away from the Castle's controls to regard Pidge. “So tell me what's going on.”

Pidge spilled the entire story, careful to keep her gaze averted so she didn't see any of the grins, smirks, smiles, or surprise that crossed Coran's face. When it was all told he simply sighed, stroked his mustache, and met her gaze.

“You have to talk to him, you know.”

“Luckily with a strengthened bond I know exactly where he is.”

****~**~**~**~**~****

Keith was the only one of the Paladins that didn't make regular trips to the observation lounge in the ship's aft section. Hunk had asked him why once, and the response had been typically Keith. “I don't enjoy staring at where I've been.”

But he was there now, sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest. He didn't flinch when the door opened, and didn't glance her way when Pidge sat beside him in an identical position. “Hey,” she greeted softly, resisting the temptation the knock their shoulders together.

All she got in reply was a grunt, so with a quiet sigh she tried again. “Look, can we -”

“No. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to talk about feelings, and I definitely don't want to talk about _my_ feelings.”

Being more or less dismissed like that pushed Pidge's buttons like nothing else, and she flared into anger. “It's not like I want to talk about it either, you know! I'm never comfortable talking about how I feel, and I sure as shit have no clue how to deal with a situation like this!”

That seemed to get through to Keith, and he finally turned his head and met her eyes. “No clue?” he asked, a hint of a smile lifting one corner of his mouth. “I thought all girls knew. Isn't it something that you learn from your mother?”

Pidge laughed. “My mother taught me mechanical engineering, not how to deal with a boy crushing on me.” Her face turned beet red. “I mean. . . That is. . .” She covered her face with both hands. “Ugh.”

“It's all right, Pidge. Crush is as good a word as any for whatever this is.” His smile was a little wry. “I just wonder if it's at all mutual.”

“Umm, well, maybe. A little bit. I uh. . .” She shook her head. “I kind of felt something when we were both connected to Red.”

“Me too,” was Keith's almost whispered reply.

“But I think it was the ponytail that really did it,” Pidge said with a laugh, flicking the tuft of hair with one hand. “I like a guy that isn't afraid to look that ridiculous.”

Keith scowled, but without any heat. “Earlier you said it looked good.”

“I lied.” Now she did knock their shoulders together. “Ya know, if you wanted to try the last part of the experiment over again I wouldn't object.”

“You mean -”

Pidge nodded. “Just, let's take it a little slower, okay?”

They each leaned toward the other in another attempt at a kiss, but it was only slightly more successful than the first one. “Look, let's both tilt our heads to the left,” Keith huffed out. “And don't forget to breath through your nose.”

The soft press of lips on lips was definitely more pleasurable than mushed noses and aching teeth.


End file.
